Unintended Consequences
When catastrophes happen, unfortunately they draw eyeballs. Mine included.
While I'm a regular news reader, multiple papers and websites per day, I’ve been fascinated with the tragedy that occurred in Baltimore Harbor this past week. A large cargo ship, the Dali, ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major thoroughfare in the Baltimore Harbor area, bringing it down (collapse). The damage both in terms of life and economics is catastrophic.
While I spend more time reading about what's below, it must be said first that the only true casualty in this event was the loss of life. All the other things can be fixed and repaired. You can't bring back loved ones that we're working on the bridge who died that fateful evening.
While it will be many months before any final declarations are made as to the reasons that the ship lost power, or whatever else happened, my guess is that it will be the unintended consequences of something simple or a series of basic issues that all coalesce together that made this tragedy even possible. Unfortunately, we find too often in these mega tragedies that it was someone not even involved or present that did something wrong or made a mistake (or a series of simple mistakes) that had terrible unintended consequences.
We've learned that through the Boeing 737 Max airplane issues. Same with the space shuttle Challenger. We learned that from the Kansas City Hyatt passenger overlook/bridge collapse, and many more.
But the unintended consequences are far reaching for many people all over the United States and the world. The bridge that collapsed carried most of the hazardous waste that has moved up and down the East Coast. It was away from population. That's going to have to change. Will there be other related issues?
There are ships in the harbor and holding on the outside of Baltimore that can't access necessary off loading and unloading services. That will hold up supply lines. That has unintended consequences for those needing whatever was in the different cargo ships.
With the harbor closed, there will be dock workers that can't do their job. And as basic as it might seem, critical to our overall economic world is those people who ensure that these massive cargo ships are properly unloaded and loaded to move both supplies and products around the world. They'll be unemployed for a while. Unintended consequence.
There are people, hundreds of thousands a day, who used the Francis Scott Key Bridge to get to work or to kids activities or other important events. With that bridge out, they'll have to spend an immense more time working around the harbor, taking them away from other things that may be a higher priority. Unintended consequence.
I could go on and on. The simplest things, which I believe will come out, which probably will deal with ships upkeep and maintenance of key ship operations, while incredibly simple if addressed, have created a tremendous problem for Baltimore and the people who live around the area. And for people further away. The unintended consequences will last for much longer and will be less reported, but not less felt.
